Race Meet 1 at Archerfield Speedway – Saturday 2nd October 2021.
Round One of the East Coast Logistics Sprintcar Track Championship series at Archerfield Speedway was launched in spectacular fashion with monster trucks and fireworks. The weather was great and the crowd was huge for the opening night of the Queensland 2021/2022 Speedway Racing Season.
Qualifying was a different format this time – out with 4 other cars on the track at once, with only 5 laps to produce the fastest lap time. Ryan was fastest in the first session but because the track was quite wet no-one got a lap time in the 12 second mark so we had to go again.
He started the second session a bit faster than he finished the first but he spun out half way through turn 2 – Ryan luckily managed to keep the car going and rejoined the track but had lost 2 laps by then (plus the lap he spun on) so his last lap was all that was going to count. He didn’t quite get the fastest lap of his group but still managed the second fastest lap and when all the times merged he’d qualified 22nd.
Heat 1 saw Ryan starting from 7th place. After getting himself up into 4th he unfortunately made an error and spun out by himself, meaning he had to go to the rear – he still managed to come home in 7th.
Heat 2 saw Ryan start from 7th position. Again he drove a good race – very composed this time round and finished 5th.
Based on the points Ryan earnt through qualifying and the heat races he started B Main from 4th position. The B Main is 15 laps and also called the last chance qualifier. The first 4 cars transfer through to the A Main feature.
It was a fairly tough trick track with not much at all on the bottom and most of the racing taking place across the top. When you did go to the bottom there was absolutely no room for errors, as there was not much grip down there.
Ryan was racing a great solid race going from 4th position to 3rd on lap 5, then dropping back to 4th on lap 6. He then dropped another spot to be in 5th for laps 8 through to 11. On lap 12 he regained 4th position only to let a car slip by him with 2 to go, bringing it home in 5th place and just missing the transfer spot.
Overall it was a fun weekend and the team is really looking forward to the next race night at Toowoomba on 9th October.
